


Eating Crackers (Rent Free)

by orphan



Series: Omeletteverse [4]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, and some nonsense plot too i guess, newt and liwen hate each other, that's it that's the fic, when in doubt... kidnapping!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan/pseuds/orphan
Summary: Liwen Shao has a very bad day.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Omeletteverse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974679
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Eating Crackers (Rent Free)

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeeeeeey who's ready for some more hyper-specific niche fic of Newt and Liwen just being absolutely irredeemably mouth-frothingly BEC at each other? Because I will not lie it is kind of my favorite... hateTP? I just wanna see these guys scream and seethe and be terrible people. It's a thing.
> 
> There's quite A Lot going on in this fic and no-one comes out of it looking particularly great. If it's about anything (boo hiss), it's about letting people live in your head rent free, I guess, so... yeah.
> 
> _I swear sometimes that[man is out to get me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxUSsFXYo4)..._

Geiszler is late.

Just after three in the morning and howling an icy, sea-spray crusted wind, and they should’ve been in the air a good twenty minutes ago. Liwen stands, furious and impotent, taking what shelter she can in the lee of a building next to their waiting Jumphawk. He’s doing this on purpose, she knows it; leaving her in the cold just because he _can_ and it’s vicious and it’s petty and childish and she hates it and she hates him and she will not, will _not_ , let him get to her and—

“Quit the bitchface we’re fucking here let’s go.”

—and he’s there, far too close and far too loud and Liwen does _not_ startle with the presence of him. She will not. He does not deserve the satisfaction.

“Where is Hermann?” she says, because Geiszler is alone, and because he’s not supposed to be.

He shoots her an absolutely withering look, pure alien malice, and: “Not here.” Then he’s climbing into the ‘Hawk like he owns it.

Liwen bites back everything she wants to say. _He’s doing it because he can,_ she reminds herself. _Do not give him the satisfaction._

She follows him into the helicopter. “I will not leave without Hermann.” He’s the senior officer, he’s supposed to be here. He’s supposed to supervise and, more importantly, to control—

“Wow, yeah. Must really suck for you that you’re legally required to come, then, as part of your freakin’ parole except, oh no. Wait. That’s us. You just invited yourself along for funsies so if you don’t wanna come then feel free to just bye-ee-ee-ee!”

Liwen _loathes_ him. It’s a physical thing; a molten pit of lead, sitting in her chest. She does not want to be here with him any more than he wants to be with her, but this is . . . this _was_ her legacy, too. This is something she needs to do. Hermann had agreed, Mori had agreed. It’s agreed. Liwen’s coming on this expedition and she knew it would mean spending more time in Geiszler’s presence than she has since . . . everything. She’d prepared for that. She’d just . . . prepared for it under the assumption Hermann would be here, as well.

They aren’t friends, exactly, but Hermann, at least, respects her. And he can keep Geiszler under control in a way no one else can. Without him . . .

Liwen doesn’t think Geiszler will hurt her. Not physically. That’s never been what she’s been afraid of.

“Hey man, sorry we’re late.” Geiszler, to the Jumphawk’s pilot. “Just gonna be the two of us today so we’re good when you are.” Said with a facade of obsequious good-naturedness that turns Liwen’s stomach.

“No worries, Doc. Might wanna strap in; it’s gonna be bumpy.”

The pilot falls for it, because almost everyone does. Because Geiszler is short and odd and deceptively babyfaced. A perfectly crafted veneer of wounded harmlessness. People _want_ to trust him, to forgive him, regardless of what he’s done, and Liwen loathes him for that, too. That he could be afforded such an easy grace, when Liwen has had to grovel far more for far less.

She swallows her bile and takes her seat. The JumpHawk is one of the PPDC’s originals, from the first War. Utilitarian and military. Shao had been trying to sell updated models—more powerful, more comfortable—when . . . everything had happened. Even now, Mori just smiles blandly whenever anyone brings it up. Not Liwen, of course, she isn’t crass. But despite their hiccups Shao is still the market leader and Geiszler never worked directly in aerospace. Their product lines are sound, and they still have plenty of support on the Council. But Mori still will not forgive them for the drone program. Not even for how it went wrong; simply that it existed at all. Mako Mori may be a hero of the first War but that just makes her a hidebound traditionalist, too wrapped up in the myth of the supposed romance of the Drift to see they’ve moved beyond it. Trying to fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s weapons will get them killed—will get _Liwen_ killed, just like it got so many others killed, including Mori’s own father—but Mori is too stubborn to see it.

Frustrating. Endlessly frustrating.

The Jumphawk’s seating is arranged in rows along the walls. Liwen takes the aft starboard seat, Geiszler throwing himself down diagonally opposite. As far away from each other as they can physically get. He buckles in but immediately swivels ninety degrees to put his feet up on the other seats, rummaging around in his leather satchel to pull out a tablet and a charcoal grey ball that unfolds into one of his horrid little bugs. The so-called Precursor hiveswarm Mori has allowed him to create and experiment with, despite all precedent and common sense.

Geiszler sets the bug in his lap, petting it absent-mindedly as it chirps and rubs its hideous mandibles against his hand. A few taps on his tablet and suddenly the chitin on the bug’s back opens and shifts and the entire Jumphawk cabin is filled with the awful, atonal shrieking of the trash Geiszler calls music.

Of _course_ he turned his pet monsters into portable speakers. Of course he did. Of course he is now going to play his awful noise far too loudly far too early in the morning. Liwen had been hoping to get at least some rest on the trip but, no. Of course not. He is doing this purely to annoy her and purely because he can; because Hermann is not here to tut and disapprove and coerce him into behaving with the tacit threat of withheld sex (never overly stated, but they are not as subtle as they think they are).

Liwen will not rise to it. She says nothing; simply makes herself as comfortable as she can (which is not very) in her own seat and closes her eyes. It’s a good six hours to Australia. She’s endured worse.

* * *

The humiliating secret—the one thing nobody else knows, even now—is Geiszler was supposed to be _her_ husband. It was part of the plan. Not explicitly so, nothing so coercive or crass, but . . .

But. Backtrack, context.

Liwen has never had much time for men. Or women. Or anyone, for that matter. She finds romance a bafflingly over-complicated waste of time and sexual release far more efficient to procure via mechanical means than human. This is who she is, who she’s always been. She sees no need to change it.

But there are still . . . expectations. Traditions. Particularly in Liwen’s world, the only child and heir to an impressive empire. Marriage and children are expected, particularly at her age, and even though she personally desires neither she still had a plan. For how to perform the duties expected of her in the most agreeable way she knew how.

So Liwen had researched. Geiszler was furiously intelligent and a war hero and, importantly, a good fit for Shao Industries, or so she had thought. Eccentric and volatile, yes, but a good man nonetheless. Kind, in his own way, and, more importantly, someone with a history of participation in LGBT activist groups. Less so since the War, but certainly before it, and he’d never been secretive about his own sexuality. If there was anyone who would understand, Liwen had thought it would be him; the brash, unconventional, queer American.

She’d had everything planned. She would give it eighteen months from his onboarding, maybe more. Enough time for him to grow confident in his role, to earn respect in his own right. Enough time for them to become friends. Confidants. She would drop hints, frustrations; the way any friend would. How unfair it was, that these expectations were placed upon her in a way they would not be, had she been born a man. Geiszler would understand, would be sympathetic, and that’s when Liwen would lay out her proposal. A marriage of convenience and a beneficial prenup, an initial commitment of seven years with an option to extend beyond and, of course, open under the caveat of discretion. (A level of infidelity was to be expected, with people of their station. And even if they themselves would not consider it such, others—including Liwen’s family—certainly would. All of this would, of course, be clearly articulated and agreed in advance.)

It had seemed so _certain_ , in Liwen’s head. Her first few in-person interactions with Geiszler had not dissuaded her; he’d been sweet and funny and had a level of infectious enthusiasm for his work Liwen had found both endearing as well as highly suitable for Shao’s future operations. Somewhat clumsy and awkward, too, but in the way of a man who’d spent a very long time locked in a dark lab, trying to save the world; Liwen had worked with far worse and had been certain he’d grow into himself quickly, especially with her guidance. They’d been almost giddying, those early days, with how readily everything had seemed to fall into place.

It hadn’t occurred to Liwen, not until far too late, that Geiszler had been playing her. She hadn’t even accounted for the fact that he might, largely because his psych profile—obtained surreptitiously from the PPDC itself—had never mentioned anything of the sort. Egomania and narcissism, yes. But by all accounts Geiszler had always been a man who’d worn his whole heart on his sleeve at all times. Difficult, but fundamentally honest.

Within six months, it’d become painfully apparent just how wrong Liwen’s assessment of him had been. Oh, he’d still been brilliant, and volatile, and a tremendously dedicated asset to the company, and he _had_ grown quickly into his role, after a fashion. But there’d been something . . . off about him. A cold and calculating cruelty that had gotten more pronounced as the years had progressed; one he’d spent less and less effort in hiding, as his position had grown more and more secure. And Liwen?

He’d _loathed_ her. She’d known it, even if he’d never come out and said as much; had only ever played the obsequious, bumbling fool in her presence. An act he’d known she’d seen right through, and maintained nonetheless; a constant reminder of just how little he’d respected her, how little of himself he’d allowed her to see.

And, all the while, he’d made her company billions. Had wormed his way into the heart of the organization, ingratiated himself with the Board and the other VPs in a way Liwen had never managed. Had made himself _essential_ , and had known it, and had taunted Liwen with the knowledge, always. It’d felt like a nail in her heart, every time. Because none of it was right, except for every way it was; Geiszler everything Liwen had dreamed, and nothing she’d wanted. And she’d spent years, wondering how she’d gone so wrong, how she’d managed to misjudge the man so badly.

She’d never managed to make any of it make sense. Until it had. And, well. By then, it’d been nearly a decade too late.

* * *

Liwen does doze, which is more a testament to her exhaustion than anything else. She wakes as they begin their descent to the Whitsundays; all white-gold sands and the brilliant blue ocean, spread out between the glittering emerald island chain. They’d been tourist resorts once, converted to auxiliary PPDC facilities in the War. Now, the Australian Government wants them back . . . including the island Shao Industries had used as part of the drone production program.

That’s why Geiszler is here. The kaiju-organic components of the program have a nasty habit of violently metastasizing if disturbed—a failsafe, to prevent tampering—and Geiszler is the only one with the knowledge to deal with it, short of carpet-bombing the entire site and hoping for the best. Not an option the Australians are enthusiastic about, not so close to the still-recovering Great Barrier Reef.

It’s Geiszler’s mess, and he’s here to clean it up. But it’s Liwen’s, too. She may no longer have a formal position at Shao, but she remains a majority shareholder, and the company is still _hers_ , regardless of their current estrangement. It survived Tokyo and Liwen will make sure it survives this, too. And she will not allow Geiszler to injure it more than he already has, particularly now she knows how deeply his loathing for it runs.

The man in question is fast asleep, snoring almost loud enough to drown out his obnoxious, and still playing, music. Liwen had watched, horrified, as a dozen-or-so more of his revolting bugs had emerged from his satchel over the course of the flight, settling across his chest and shoulders and _face_. Attracted to his body heat, perhaps, or some even more repulsively alien instinct. Liwen hates them, finds them difficult to even look at; hideous crosses between kaiju and cockroaches that bring bile to her throat with their endless chittering and masses of squirming legs. She almost regrets the fact they haven’t attempted to explore the cabin further. Haven’t gotten close enough to give her an excuse to test, once and for all, how well a Louboutin stiletto fares against kaiju chitin . . .

Liwen forces herself to take a breath. To look away, out the Jumphawk’s window. The islands truly are beautiful, as is the glittering, turquoise sea. She can imagine what it’d been like. Before the War, before humanity learnt to fear the ocean.

Another deep breath. She can do this. Just a few hours, then it’s done. For now.

Geiszler wakes with a snort when the Jumphawk touches ground, the jolt stirring him back to consciousness. He heaves a deep breath, hand coming up to rub at his face an encountering the shell of a bug instead.

“Mgpf,” he mutters, still obviously half asleep. “‘Chu doin’ there, li’l buddy?” There’s a moment, a razor-thin edge between sleep and waking, when he looks almost human. Soft. He gently pulls the bug from his face and smiles as he notices its fellows. “C’mon babies,” he tells them. “Back in your balls.” He taps one behind the head, gently and twice, and it obediently rolls back up. The others follow similarly, and he begins to pack them back into his satchel, leaving only the still-playing speaker-bug free. It’s almost . . . sweet. The most caring Liwen has even seen from him; more than perhaps she’d thought him capable of.

Then he notices her watching. The change that comes over him—that manic, alien, sharpness—makes her shudder, forces her gaze away. That she could have, even for a moment, thought . . .

Stupid. Stupid, naive little girl.

No point dwelling, and so she huffs. Unbuckles her seatbelt and stretches aching limbs as she disembarks from the landed Jumphawk.

Outside is as hot and humid as a Hong Kong summer. Liwen pushes through it, down onto the tarmac where a cluster of people wait. Geiszler follows, falling a half-step behind either from habit or mockery or both. She makes no comment. Not on that, and not not he gum he’s apparently decided to chew and snap, obnoxiously loud. He’s produced a similarly obnoxious pair of sunglasses from somewhere and he grins beneath them as their welcoming committee steps forward, his grating voice calling, “If it isn’t our favorite fascist!” far too loudly. “If we’d known you were coming we would’ve dressed up. Worn the ol’ Bintang tank to fit in.”

The man he’s talking to smirks in response, more rueful than amused. “G’day, Newt,” he says. “Ranger Shao.”

He extends his hand, and Liwen shakes it. His grip is slightly too tight, but she far prefers that to the men who’ll barely shake a woman’s hand at all. “Marshal Hansen,” she says. “A pleasure.”

“Air Vice-Marshal, actually,” Hansen says. “But call me Herc.”

Liwen gives a half-nodding bow, utterly certain this will never happen, but not at all crass enough to say as much.

“Drew the short straw, huh?” Geiszler, who has no such tact, announces. “Getting stuck with babysitting duty.”

“Mako called in a favor,” Hansen replies. “Thought you might actually behave for someone you know can kick the shit outta you if you don’t.” He says it with the same kind of faux impassiveness Liwen’s heard from Mori and Hermann. Even Geiszler himself manages it, in his colder moods. As if they’d all been taught by the same master. The ghost of a war Liwen had never fought, cloistered away as she had been, far behind the ultimately useless (but extremely profitable) Wall.

“We’re behaving!” Geiszler is saying, gesturing expressively at himself. “Look at how behaved we are. We spent six hours on a ‘Hawk with Liwen and didn’t try and strangle her once!”

“Fuckin’ Order of Australia material right there. I’ll write up the recommendation to the King myself. Soon as you give up where you hid Hermann’s body.”

Geiszler laughs and says something in reply, but Liwen misses it as a young Asian woman steps forward and says, in a startlingly board Australian accent, “Ranger Shao? It’s an honor to meet you. I’m Vi, I’ll be your PA while you’re here.”

Liwen blinks, looks at the girl. She’s dressed in the sort of passable-but-shabby off-the-rack outfit of someone used to a t-shirt and jeans, suddenly forced into office clothes. No makeup, bob washed and brushed and little else. “You’re one of—” Liwen starts, then cuts herself off. _Mine_ , she’d been about to say. “You work for Shao Industries,” comes the amended version.

“Yes ma’am.” The girl blinks, gormless and earnest. Definitely a spy—Geiszler isn’t the only one worthy of a babysitter, it seems—but perhaps an unintentional one. “We’re all really excited to have you back.”

“You were from the facility, then?” Liwen guesses. “From before.”

“Yup,” says the girl, formality apparently evaporating in the blistering sun of her adopted country. “It’s, um. Been sealed. Since . . . y’know.” Her eyes flick to Geiszler, just once, then back. “So we’re not . . . sure what we’ll find, exactly? Maybe nothing?” Hopeful, seeking reassurance.

“We wouldn’t be here,” Liwen says. “Were that the case.”

“Oh.” The girl’s shoulders droop and Liwen immediately regrets the harshness of her words. She rarely means to be so . . . brusque. Has been trying hard not to be, in this strange new life. But it’s too easy, falling back on bad habits. Particularly now, with Geiszler’s incessant buzzing, not three feet to her right.

“—a desk,” he’s saying, to Hansen. “Working on your whole, like. Defense of Canberra Badge thing.”

“Spouse accompany,” is Hansen’s reply. “Left Tash in Townsville. The quicker you clean up your shit the quicker we can both get back to Mai Tais on the beach.”

“How is Tash? Still stoked about Riley popping the question to Jay?”

“How did you know about—?”

“Tendo added her to the group chat, man.”

“Fucking Tendo . . .” Fond, despite the cursing.

“Hey, when you’re ready to join the rest of humanity in 2014, you too can learn the secrets of this esoteric, cutting-edge technology. In the meantime, we have Tash to keep us up-to-date on all the hot goss from the casa de Hansen-Young.”

Hansen huffs, but nonetheless launches into a long discussion of what appears to be his adult step-child’s impending nuptials. Geiszler participates with the easy camaraderie of someone treading well-worn small-talk, keeping track of an entire army of colleagues and friends and extended family members Liwen has never before heard him mention. It’s almost startling to her, to realize how much of an existence he has outside of the Shatterdome; he certainly hadn’t had one at Shao. Intentionally walling himself off from any influence that may have dissuaded him from his awful goals. Walling himself off from all the parts of humanity he found laudable, lovable. Worthy of salvation.

Liwen tunes them out. Focuses on the click of her heels and the deep, even rhythm of her breath. Geiszler’s damage is his own. He’s a monster and he loathes her and it means nothing, absolutely nothing. She will not allow him to blame her for his own failings.

The facility is a short drive from the helipad, which they take in a procession of golf carts. Vi drives Liwen, following Geiszler and Hansen up ahead, and for the first time since this morning Liwen feels herself relax, just a fraction.

The silence is awkward, so Liwen fills it by asking Vi about herself. She knows how to do this; she’s taken classes on it. People hate silences and love to talk about themselves, especially to any authority figure that displays any kind of interest. A natural human behavior, status-seeking. And Vi is chatty, once Liwen gives her the opening; talking about growing up in rural Australia and going into biology at university. When she mentions having to choose between job offers with both the PPDC and Shao, and choosing the latter, Liwen allows herself a small flush of pride. Particularly when Vi says: “Its was, um. I thought it would be cool, y’know? Not many huge companies out there with lady CEOs. _Asian_ lady CEOs.”

“Your family is from China?” Liwen asks.

“Oh, gosh. Um. Like. From Canton, a million years ago? We’ve been here a long time so we’re pretty, y’know . . .’” She makes a vague gesture. “This is my home. I don’t even speak Mandarin.” A small pause, then: “A little Cantonese, though.”

“You’d learn it, easily,” Liwen says.

“I’ve been back a few times,” Vi says. “But it’s always, uh. It can be a bit . . .” She grimaces, tries to choose her next words carefully. “I guess ‘cause I look like I belong, then I open my mouth, and it’s obvious that. You know. I don’t.” She’s gives a rueful grin. “And this accent’s _never_ going away, so. I don’t wanna, like. Inflict it on anyone too much.”

_Inflict it on you._ Liwen hears it, loud as a kaiju’s roar. Because that’s her reputation now, isn’t it? She’d berated Geiszler for his Mandarin for years, frustrated with what at the time had seemed like baffling incompetence at best and outright mocking racism at worse. By the time it’d been revealed a ruse, the damage had already been done, and now it’s Liwen who lives with the scars. Because of course.

* * *

There’s a larger contingent waiting for them when they arrive at the facility, split between the Australian PPDC and Shao. A dozen people total, here to help with clean up. Geiszler strides into the group even before Hansen can do introductions, peeling out all the Corps personnel and telling them to follow. It’s extremely clear, when he starts unsealing the biohazard tape from the facility door, that he intends for _only_ the Corps staff to accompany him.

“This is a joint endeavor,” Liwen says, almost in spite of herself. “And the facility is still o— Shao’s.”

Geiszler gives her a look that makes it blisteringly clear her little slip did not go unnoticed. “So write a complaint and die mad about it,” he snaps. “And don’t make us remind you what happened the last time anyone from SI got their hands on kaiju biomatter.”

“You _cannot_ use that—”

“Besides,” he adds, as if she hadn’t spoken, “we’re not getting blamed for the deaths of a bunch of overpaid private sector assholes who thought they were too good to follow directions, or because they were trying to cover shit up before the Corps could find it.”

“This is _your_ mess.” Liwen is furious. Her whole body feels tight with it. “We are not trying to— to _cover it up_!” She feels the pit right as she steps out over it, vertiginous and obvious. And yet she falls, every time.

“How would you know?” Geiszler is grinning, vicious and feral. “You quit. You’re Corps now too. So it’s not like they’re going to tell you. Right, _Ranger_?”

When Liwen looks, the little cluster of Shao people won’t meet her eyes, and she feels her heart plummet. Geiszler, she reminds herself, knows a thing or two about divided loyalties . . . and about cover-ups. He’s a monster and she loathes him but . . .

But he might just very well be right.

“We are all here to achieve the same goal.” Liwen swallows her pride, her rage, and the words come out smooth and even. “I know it is how you are used to operating but believe me when I say you do not need to play your little games. We are all _painfully_ aware you are the lead here and everyone will follow your directions.”

She forces herself to stare him down, to not flinch from his too-bright too-blue gaze. It works, and he is the one who snorts and looks away. “Sure,” he says. “We’ll see.” Then he gives one final tug, and the last of the containment tape falls free.

* * *

The inside of the facility is a nightmare. It reeks of ammonia and rotting silicone, even through their masks, and bizarre tentacles of writhing, dripping kaiju flesh have spread throughout the building’s electrics, bursting through walls and enveloping computer systems.

“Jesus Christ, Newt,” Hansen breathes. “The fuck did you do?”

Geiszler just shrugs, poking at a limp tentacle. He’s the only one not sheathed head-to-toe in biohazard gear and, honestly, Liwen does not care enough to wonder why.

“Power’s been cut since Tokyo?” he asks.

“Uh. Y-yes, sir,” says one of the Shao staff. “There was, uh. A surge. We shut down the production line and evacuated. It’s been sealed since.” Liwen wonders if they know Geiszler from before or if they’re new hires since the incident.

“Hm,” Geiszler says. “She’s alive, but dormant. Be careful and don’t startle her.” He pulls one of his bugs from his satchel, and places it onto the grotesque mass of flesh. It immediately scurries off, much to the consternation of the people who’ve never seen one before today.

“What do you mean, ‘she?’” asks Hansen.

“Habit. Use whatever pronouns you like; they’re all wrong, biologically speaking.”

“You know that’s not what I—”

“Is the whole building a giant kaiju? Yes, of course. This is Flesh— is Precursor tech. _Everything_ is a kaiju; it’s like asking if a Jaeger is a smartphone. Same engineering, different form and function.”

“Where—” starts one of the PPDC techs, before cutting herself off.

“Ask anything you want.” Geiszler waves a hand, lazily. He’s pulled out his tablet and is tapping away at it as he begins to move further into the building. “And stay close,” he adds. “She knows us but not you. We don’t really know how she’ll react to humans but we’re guessing you don’t want to find out, so-oo-oo . . .”

Everyone bunches up like an awful, claustrophobic, tour group.

“Where does the biomass come from?” asks the j-tech, returning to her earlier question.

“Excellent question,” Geiszler announces. He loves this; being the centre of attention, being the _expert_. Such a revolting and petty creature. “Short answer, it’s the cabling. Longer answer, it’s very specifically the SI-OKSS”—pronounced as _sci-ocks_ —“cabling. Such a great little invention; it wired up every Shao Jaeger and they’d started putting it in buildings, too. Blindingly fast. And basically just kaiju nervous tissue. This”—he taps on a flesh-filled fissure in the wall—“is what it looks like when it goes feral.”

This announcement leads to a not-insignificant amount of murmuring among the Shao people. “It— it’s in almost every facility!” one blurts.

Geiszler just shrugs. “Most of which are totally fine. Honestly we’d kinda figure you would’ve already noticed and started ripping it out but, hey. That one’s on you, bud.” They’d never sold the OKSS commercially; there’d been a great deal of argument about it but it’d been Geiszler who’d advocated keeping it in-house. Likely worried it’s true nature would be too easily discovered, otherwise.

“Why does it . . . ‘go feral?’” From one of the PPDC people.

“Another great question. Not sure. Best guess is there was enough biomass in the data centre that it got self-aware after we pulled the switch on the drones. But why here and not other locations? Need more data.”

“There was a drone core.” Another Shao tech. “We’d been, uh. We’d hooked it into the computer systems. Trying to, um.”

Geiszler stops and rounds on the tech, expression gleefully wicked. “Dude. Seriously? A _drone core_. You just . . . plugged it into the network, did you? Just thought, ‘Hey that air-gap shit I bet that’s just overkill. It’s _totally_ fine to hook up a _Drift system_ to an internet-facing, general-purpose network. That won’t be dangerous in any readily foreseeable way, let alone any ones we don’t know about.’ That sounded like a great idea to you, did it?”

“Um . . .” says the tech, glancing between Geiszler and Liwen. “We’d noticed some . . . abnormalities. In the cores. We’d been, um. Told to. Investigate.” Without Geiszler’s knowledge, goes unspoken.

The man in question just laughs, manic enough to earn a growled, “ . . . Newt. Watch it,” from Hansen.

Unbelievably, it works; Geiszler forcibly calms himself, though can’t quite pull the grin from his expression. “Who asked—? No. You know what? It doesn’t matter. We don’t actually care. But, yes; that’ll be your problem. And now we’ve all learned an important lesson in operational security. Even when they’re not made of kaiju, don’t break air gaps on Drift systems, unless you _want_ to fry pilots’ brains.”

“We weren’t— we weren’t ever going to use it!” the tech protests. “It was just to—”

Geiszler waves him off. “Not your boss anymore, don’t give a shit.” Then he’s turning on the heel of his Doc Martens and stalking off, everyone immediately scrambling to keep up.

The . . . infestation in the building gets worse the deeper in they get. Geiszler stops them at frequent intervals, taking samples and photos and pointing out where the biomass has started absorbing and incorporating other parts of the building, particularly anything made from glass, silicone, or concrete.

“Why concrete?” asks one of the PPDC techs, earning a lecture on calcium silicate in response. They’ve worked out Geiszler will answer—in detail and at length—anything they ask, and he’s less aggressive towards them than he is to the Shao staff. Liwen is fairly sure some of the latter have started texting questions to the former, and if the realization makes her smirk, no one can see it behind her mask.

The most unnerving discovery is that the infestation has gotten into the building’s physical systems, and that the . . . intelligence behind it is watching them. Doors open as they approach and lights turn on. Hansen points out the facility has no power but Geiszler just shrugs and says, “Neither do you, but you manage.”

“Thought you said it was dormant?”

“She is. Well, was. We’ve woken her up.”

“Not filling me with confidence here, Newt . . .”

“She’s not going to suddenly grow legs and attack Brisbane,” Geiszler says. “She’s still a building.”

“But she would if she could?” Hansen guesses.

Geiszler sighs. “It’s a work in progress. The Flesh carves them deep, man, and those wounds don’t just close overnight. So we can override some of the programming temporarily but if there’s nothing to replace it . . .” He makes a helpless gesture. “We’re building whole new fields from the ground up, here. It’s gonna take time to get through to them.”

“To— to the kaiju?” from Vi, who startles at the sound of her own voice. Then, when Geiszler turns to her: “You— you’re talking about the kaiju, right? About— about helping them. Get better. Mentally.”

He stares her down, unblinking and intense, and Liwen has had enough. Of his ego and his bile, and she opens her mouth but before she can speak he says:

“It’s not natural for any living thing, to destroy and destroy and destroy with no thought to any other goal, even its own life. Forcing anything into that state . . . it can’t last. It’s not designed to. And what comes out the other side . . .” He gestures, not quite to himself. “But. It’s survivable. With the right . . . help. And there’s no weapon in existence that’s more effective than an enemy that wants to be a friend.”

“Do . . . do you really think you can—?”

“Hold out your hand.”

Vi hesitates, but swallows her fear and squares her jaw and does so. Geiszler puts one of his bugs into her palm, and it immediately uncurls, chirruping in confusion and blinking too-big eyes beneath a pair of fluffy antennae. It’s different to the others. There’s soft grey fur peeking between the plates of its chitin and it almost, _almost_ , looks . . . cute.

Vi gasps. “What—?”

“Precursor hiveswarm. A cellphone to a Jaeger. She’s imprinted to us, but you can look after her for a bit, if you like.”

“Hello,” Vi says to the bug, petting it gently. “Oh, wow. You’re kinda awesome, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

“Mothra,” says Geiszler, with something that could almost be a regular smile.

Vi giggles at the name. “Of course,” she says. “And, um. Yes. I’ll be super careful. What, um—?”

“She’s built to interact with humans,” Geiszler says. “She’s fuzzy and she likes cuddles and scritches. Nothing more to it than that.”

Liwen doubts this, very much. But when she catches Hansen’s eye he just sighs and rolls his own. It occurs to Liwen he was likely warned about the bugs in advance; he hadn’t reacted at the one Geiszler had let loose before, either. They are, technically, a PPDC-sanctioned experiment, signed off by Marshal Mori herself. Liwen had protested, vociferously, when she’d found out, but all Mori had done was regard her mildly and say, _“For ten years, you tried things your way. Now it’s my turn.”_

* * *

And then, they reach the datacenter. Or what’s left of it.

“Well,” Geiszler says, hands on his hips and surveying the damage. “This will be fun.”

The drone core is intact but little else; racks and cages burst open, every cable and chipset warped and consumed by masses of pulsing, glowing, oozing flesh. The ammonia reek so overpowering, even through the mask, it burns Liwen’s throat and brings tears to her eyes. Geiszler, of course, strides forward like he doesn’t even notice it. He’s put on gloves and safety glasses as apparently his only concession to PPE and is busy gently running his hands over quivering tentacles, apparently trying to trace where they go.

“So what’s the plan?” Hansen asks. “Or are we firebombing after all?”

“Nah. The core is intact. We can shut her down and cut her out. Then it’s just a standard site decon.”

“And the core?”

“The core is Shao Industries property,” one of the tech says, and Liwen tries not to wince when not just Geiszler but Hansen laugh in his face.

“Nice try, sunshine,” says Hansen. “But you know that’s not how this works.” The PPDC has gotten extremely aggressive over the enforcement of the HDEBM since Tokyo, chasing down kaiju biomatter with a fervor they used to reserve for rogue Jaeger. Shao has a license to do some research under extremely strict parameters, but Geiszler has consistently argued against it, and anything relating to neural work or Drift technology is now entirely off-limits. Mori is on his side and Liwen knows it’s only a matter of time before their combined influence means the entire avenue is closed off permanently. Mori is too well-respected (and feared) by the Security Council, especially with Geiszler acting as her leashed pet and the threat of renewed war fresh in everyone’s minds. The full tide of funding hasn’t quite shifted back to K-Science, but it will.

“Know Herms would love to get his hands on a live one of these babies,” Geiszler is saying, hands running over corrupted drone core’s shell. “Tell us all the ways he would’ve done it better.”

“You two are a menace,” from Hansen, leaning far too nonchalantly against a pile of toppled server racks.

“Ah, but the Corps’ menace. Better than the alternative, right?”

Always the pettiest of digs. Always.

Geiszler begins unloading more bugs from his satchel. They set to work, swarming over the biomass, glowing in a way alarmingly reminiscent of the Rippers. Geiszler is tapping away at his tablet again, obviously directing the creatures in some way he does not expand on, even when he’s perfectly content to explain every other action—loudly, at length—to his clustered audience of techs. The few times Liwen catches a look at his screen, all the text appears to be the strange dualistic scrawl of the Precursors.

At one point the lights go dark. Actually, the whole building does, background hum of the HVAC Liwen hadn’t even realized was on falling into an ominous silence.

“Oh,” says Geiszler. “Right. Duh. Oops.”

“Newt?”

Geiszler taps at his tablet and immediately his bugs begin emitting a quite startling amount of bioluminescent light. It washes everything in ominous blue, shadows dancing wildly as the bugs continue to scurry about the space. “Well. Good news: core’s out and safely asleep. Bad news: that means we’re now standing inside a rotting— Wait. That’s not right.”

“What’s not—?” is as far as Hansen gets.

Then the wall explodes inwards, and everything gets worse.

* * *

The last thing Liwen remembers with any clarity is the impossible silhouette of a Jaeger, backlit by blindingly brilliant sunlight. It’s small, a solo rig—like Scrapper but far less... scrappy—and she barely has time to process the sight when there’s a distinctive popping hiss and two gas canisters skitter along the ground.

“Everybody!” Hansen roars. “Get back! Don’t breathe it _aurgh_!”

He drops in time to the sound of a rifle, as black-clad figures swarm into the room.

There is screaming, and struggling, and Liwen tries very hard to get away. But the gas has seeped in through her mask, and when she stumbles—tripping over a fleshy tentacle—she goes down. Hard.

Boots swarm into her vision and the last thing she sees is Geiszler, somehow entirely unaffected by the chaos, barking orders to their assailants.

* * *

She wakes sometime later to a splitting headache, rolling nausea, and the strange hum of engines. Liwen gasps, tries to struggle upright, and immediately regrets it when her stomach makes its displeasure known.

Someone hands her a bucket, and Liwen throws up the coffee and congee she’d had for breakfast, half a day ago now. From the state of the bucket, she’s not the first person to have done so.

“Easy,” a voice is saying. “It’s okay. You’ll feel like shit but it’s okay.” Vi. The voice is Vi’s. “Here.”

Liwen is handed a cup of water, and she drinks it greedily. Then immediately regrets the action, and spits back into the bucket. It takes a few more tries before her mouth stops tasting of bile, and she’s able to get the last few gulps of water down.

“What—?”

“So-oo-oo, um.” Vi sounds barely more coherent than Liwen feels. “Ap-apparently we got kidnapped? I think we’re on an, um. A boat?”

Liwen nods. That explains the nausea. And the rumbling engine and the lurching roil.

“It must be, like. A really big boat, though. Like. _Super_ big. Because, um . . .”

Vi shifts, awkwardly, and something in her voice makes Liwen look up and—

“No . . .”

They’re on a mezzanine over some kind of cargo hold, almost mind-numbingly enormous. Their small cluster of bedraggled survivors, gun-wielding men in black fatigues assembled all around. And in the middle of the space, slumped almost obscenely against the wall?

Is one of the kaiju-corrupted Jaeger drones.

Liwen feels her heart seize. They’re roughly level with its head but the floor they’re on is metal grille and she can see the thing has been sliced clean through at the waist. Only the head and torso and right arm are intact, the left arm merely a stump of mangled metal and oozing, rotting flesh. The drone’s jaw hangs open obscenely, its eyes dark, and it’s quite obvious the thing is dead.

Its chassis is also open, old core removed, new one hanging from a crane, ready to be put in place. The core from the Australian facility. The one Geiszler had just disconnected.

“No.”

The man in question is standing by the mezzanine rail, still covered in his horrible bugs, still tapping away at his tablet. Unafraid and unconcerned, and Liwen feels a wave of rage wash over her, bright and white and burning cold. Her vision narrows and her limbs move, seemingly without her direction. She _howls_ , undignified and high-pitched, lurching to her feet and lunging at Geiszler. He’s distracted and she’s slammed into him before he has a chance to react, fingers scrabbling desperately for his tablet.

He curses, tries to push her off him. He’s strong but he’s caught off guard, but they’re very close to the rail of the mezzanine and Liwen throws all her effort into pushing them both over. They’re high up and Liwen doubts she’ll survive the fall but . . . but it will be worth it, she thinks, if there’s a chance she can take him with her.

He pushes her back and she surges forward and . . . and a dim part of her thinks they must look ridiculous. Neither of them are particularly martially adroit and their struggle is more of an awkward sibling slap-fight than inspiring battle.

“The fuck?” More of a shriek than anything else. “The fuck are you—? Stop that! Stop! Give that—”

Liwen roars when her fingers finally, finally, get a good grip on Geiszler’s tablet. She pulls it and he pulls back and she does the only thing she can think of in response and _bites_. Right over the snarling face of his godawful tattoo.

Geiszler yelps, and Liwen stumbles backwards, falling awkwardly on her ass, as his fingers slip free of the tablet. She has half a second to glance at the screen—and incomprehensible mess of Precursor text and what looks like a heartbeat monitor and . . . some kind of surgical cross-section?—when Geiszler shrieks:

“The _fuck_ —? Give th— give that back! Right now!” He takes a step forward, Liwen shuffles back, hugging the tablet to her chest. She has no idea what she hopes to achieve, now that she has it. Only that she does not want Geiszler to get it back.

“Fuck you we were in the middle of—” Geiszler stops himself, closes his eyes and clenches his fists and Liwen _sees_ the change come over him. Sees him shake off the veneer of humanity. When he next speaks, his voice has that sharp, alien buzz and his expression has fallen into incomprehensible blankness. “Give it back,” he snarls, in his strange and strangely accented Mandarin, “or Hansen dies.”

Liwen’s heart skips. Her eyes dart to where their small group is huddled and . . . and Hansen isn’t among them. Liwen remembers the gunshot. “You— you wouldn’t dare.”

Geiszler holds out his hand. “ _We_ won’t have done anything,” he says. “That will be on _you_.”

Liwen looks at him, unblinking and cold, and down at the tablet.

It’s human life signs; even with the incomprehensible text, she can see as much.

“You— you’re a monster,” she says, and believes it.

“We’re not the one murdering an innocent man.”

Liwen looks at him, and at the grotesque husk of the drone behind him. Then she closes her eyes, exhales a shaky breath, and makes a choice and holds out the tablet.

Geiszler takes it and, instantly, three of the black-clad men descend on Liwen. She cries out in pain as a boot makes contact with her stomach, forcing her into a fetal position. She curls her arms over herself, preparing for more, when:

“Cut that shit out.” Snapped in English, “We told you we need them all. Alive.”

“One example,” says a new voice, somewhere above Liwen’s huddled form. “And the others will work harder.”

“Are you _questioning_ us, you pissant human piece of shit? Do you want your Jaeger or not?”

“You did more with less before.” The voice is male, but he’s speaking English and Liwen doesn’t recognize the accent. European, she thinks, but couldn’t narrow it down more than that.

“We did _more_ ,” Geiszler snarls, “with a hundred thousand duped fucking Shao morons and the quote-unquote ‘best’ automation your pathetic planet has to offer. We’re preforming miracles with what you’ve given us as it is. _Don’t_ try our patience.”

Liwen wonders how long he’s planned this for. And with whom. She knows some of the cultists worship him, and there are plenty of other groups who’d give almost anything to get their hands on one of the Jaeger drones, even corrupted. _Especially_ corrupted. The Shatterdome is heavily guarded and Geiszler isn’t permitted to leave without an escort, but it was always only ever a matter of time. Mori is too lenient with him. _Hermann_ is too lenient and, god. Where is Hermann? He should’ve been here. What has Geiszler done with him?

More importantly, how long do they have to stall until someone finds out?

The men around Liwen back off, and she slowly uncurls. Geiszler is staring at her and their eyes lock, just for a moment. Then he huffs and turns to the rest of the huddled hostages and:

“All right, nerds,” he snarls. “For those of you who haven’t yet figured out the plot; our new friends here want Ariel back there reactivated. We’re going to do it, and you are going to help us. And we know some of you are thinking, ‘That Geiszler asshole. He’s only got six doctorates and the collective knowledge of the entire Anteverse in his his head. I bet I can outsmart h—‘ _Bzzt! Wrong!_ You are not smarter than us. You cannot outwit us. You cannot delay and equivocate and think we won’t notice. You will do what we tell you, when we tell you, or you will be shot. Do you understand us?” A few sobbing murmurs, so: “We said: do you fucking. Understand us?”

A louder chorus of assent, and Liwen can’t help the shudder at the change that comes over Geiszler at the sound. The facade of affability that slams down over the callous and calculating monster beneath.

“Good,” Geiszler says. “Now. Since we don’t know most of you, we’re going to come around and have a chat, get a quick CV out of everyone and try and figure out where best to put you. We’re not gonna lie; this is gonna be hard work, and it’s gonna suck. But we know what we’re doing and we’ll get you through it. So”—he gestures to them all—“let’s get this done, okay?” And he gives them all an aw-shuck grin, and Liwen swears she will destroy him.

* * *

Weirdly enough, he does do exactly what he says: takes everyone aside, one-by-one, out of earshot, and seems to just . . . talk to them. People follow him trembling and in tears and come back . . . still scared, but also determined. Geiszler’s back into his affably harmless persona so Liwen would be lying to say she doesn’t entirely understand it; he’d always been good at first impressions, at projecting the image he wanted to give. It was only long-term the cracks started to show.

Liwen is utterly unsurprised when she is the only one Geiszler does not pull aside. He seems content to simply pretend she does not exist at all, and says nothing when Liwen slots herself in with the team he has working on repairing the drone’s mechanical parts. It’s a mix of Shao and PPDC people; Geiszler has assigned individual tasks but the Shao people are too deferential to allow Liwen to assist while the PPDC staff obviously do not trust her, and the net effect leaves her feeling awkward and adrift. Vi tries to help, coming over to chat and introduce her to the others, but Vi’s been assigned into the xenobiology team and Geiszler’s bug still huddles on her shoulder, staring at Liwen with its too-big-too-bright eyes. She is sure they are reporting back to Geiszler somehow; audio or video via his tablet or some even more esoteric, even more alien, connection. One bug with Vi, one Geiszler has set up in the middle of the space to blast them all with awful music (he’s even assigned someone to DJ, because _of course_ he has). The others fly and scuttle around, crawling over the seeping, rotting flesh of the drone and seemingly repairing it. Reconstructing tissue and cauterizing nerves.

“Don’t want her waking up in agony,” Geiszler explains, because he always was physically incapable not not narrating every single thing he does. “She’s probably gonna be pretty mad as it is without making her worse.”

“Do they even feel pain?” from one of the PPDC people in the biology group. “In Hauser and Crabb’s analysis of—”

“Hauser and Crabb are dumbasses who wouldn’t know a kaiju nervous system if it strangled them,” Geiszler snaps. “Of _course_ the kaiju feel pain. Is it exactly the same experience a human has? Of course not. But they known when they’re damaged and have a natural drive to avoid things that cause it. Smooth-brained dipshits splitting hairs about whether that counts as ‘pain’ or not can suck our fucking dick.” Charming, as always.

“But in combat—”

“In combat,” says Geiszler, because god forbid he ever allow anyone else a complete sentence, “you’re dealing with a fuckton of Precursor programming. Don’t think it’s telling you jack about any shit but that. The Flesh doesn’t consider the kaiju sentient entities with valid feelings any more than it considers _you_ sentient entities with valid feelings.”

“But they have them?” from Vi, hand absent-mindedly running through her bug’s fuzz. “The kaiju, I mean.”

Geiszler just looks up at the slumped, half-dismembered form of the Jaeger drone, contemplative. “Guess we’ll find out,” he finally says.

* * *

Liwen eventually finds herself a job re-soldering some of the damaged outer plating on the drone’s remaining arm. It’s backbreaking work to do by hand, but no matter how much Geiszler screeches, their captors will not let them use the solo Jaeger. It sits on the far side of the ship’s enormous hold, deactivated but manned; an unsubtle and ever-present threat should any of their little group get any ideas about turning machinery into weapons.

There are three of them working the soldering job. The equipment they have is both dated and very obviously stolen from the PPDC, but Liwen’s spent enough time with Jules to know her way around it. That leaves her the most experienced of their little group and she ends up teaching the other two—both Shao employees—the ropes, quite literally in the case of the harnesses they’re using.

They’re up there maybe an hour when things go wrong, as they were always going to. Everyone is stressed and frightened, working on a project they know they shouldn’t, for men they do not want to obey. And the equipment is heavy and dangerous and they’re fast running up to the maximum time j-tech allows for workers to roster on to these sorts of jobs. Muscles shake and minds wander and it’s only a matter of time before Liwen hears pained shouting and the clanging of dropped equipment.

It’s Andy; technically a lawyer by day, and sent by Shao to ensure the PPDC honored the terms of its clean-up contract. Something that seems so long ago now, and so irrelevant, as Liwen and three other people try and get him down and out of his harness, stomachs turning at the fried-pork stink of where he’s slipped and burnt off half his hand with his welding torch.

“The hell happened?”

Geiszler. Just what they don’t need.

Liwen intercepts him before he can make things worse. “We need a doctor,” she says. Then, because she knows him: “A _medical_ doctor. He’s hurt. Badly.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” from a new woman, who bustles past them, first aid box clutched in her hands. “Someone get water!” she yells, and people scramble to obey.

“The fuck did you _do_?” Immediate crisis apparently bring handled, Geiszler’s attention shifts to Liwen.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t you fucking even start!” Geiszler is not tall, for a white man, but he has a presence that _looms_ , vicious and feral. He steps forward, chitin-nailed index finger jabbing into Liwen’s collarbone. “You think this is a fucking _game_? We warned you. We _told_ you not to fuck around, not to start shit. _You_ were the one who had to fucking stick her nose in, and now people are going to fucking _die_ because, once again, Liwen fucking Shao was too fucking important to pay the fuck attention to—”

Liwen slaps him. She isn’t proud of it and doesn’t even really mean to. It just . . . she’s had enough. She doesn’t think it even hurts him, not really, but it shuts him up, which is enough.

“You pathetic, whining little _monster_ ,” she hisses at him. “You do not do this. You do not get to blame me. Not again. This is _your_ doing. We are here because of _you_. Andy is hurt because of _you_. When people die it will be—”

“At least I’m fucking _doing something_!” Geiszler all-but shrieks it. “It must be so lovely for you, so easy, to sit back and lord it over us fucking peasants, making judgements and demands and getting patted on the head for just showing the fuck up. Well fuck you, Princess! I’ve had e-fucking-nough, and those of us who live in the real world—”

“Shut up! Both of you, _please_!”

Geiszler reacts more to the doctor’s shout than he did to Liwen’s slap, mouth clicking shut and blinking. He physically takes a step back, grimacing, hand coming up to clutch at his head.

Everyone is watching them. _Everyone_. Even Andy, trembling and sweating and pale, burnt hand soaking in a bucket of water.

And their captors, of course; half-alert now, guns partially raised.

“You got a problem down there, chief?” one calls from an overhead gangway.

Geiszler is breathing very quickly, eyes still screwed shut and thumb and forefinger pressed hard into the corners of the sockets. He startles a little at the voice, but when he speaks his own words have that dull, alien buzz:

“No problem,” he says. “Just a little fun. And now everyone’s getting right back to work. Aren’t they?” Then, when no-one moves: “I said: _Aren’t they_?” And he looks up, and everyone scatters.

“This ain’t no cruise ship,” their captor calls. “Plenty of sharks still in the sea would love some deadweight to chew on.”

Of all things, Geiszler shoots _Liwen_ a look. One of pure, unfettered loathing. Then he spins on his heels, to call: “We’ve told you already; you want us to do this job, the meat is _ours_. We—”

Liwen does not deign to listen to the rest.

* * *

Geiszler was right about one thing; Liwen has been too passive, too accepting. The situation they are in is dire but Liwen is a master of her own fate, not the reverse. She is not a princess who needs to sit around and do nothing.

It is not difficult to collect the items she needs. Their captors have already stripped them all—bar Geiszler, of course—of phones and smartwatches and tablets and any other device that could be used to contact the outside world. But they are also set to repairing an enormous Jaeger, and it is not difficult for Liwen to slip wires and components into her pockets as she works.

Business is Liwen’s first love, and greatest mastery, but engineering was her undergrad and she is not at all ignorant of her own company’s products. Rogue Jaeger are a worldwide problem and all critical Shao components are fitted with homing beacons designed to aid in the recovery of any misappropriated systems. It’s not something they advertise and the beacons themselves are inconspicuous and, near as they can make them, tamper-proof. The ones inside the half-destroyed drone are fried but Liwen thinks she’ll be able to collect enough components to reassemble something workable. The signal will transmit to Shao’s satellites and, from there, back to their central JSOC. There are no clocks in the ship’s hold so Liwen has no way of knowing how long they’ve been here, how long its been since they were taken. Even if no one yet knows what’s happened, Shao will send a recovery team after the beacon. After that, all they have to do is wait.

“—kinda weren’t kidding about you and Liwen Shao, huh?”

Vi, voice drifting down from an upper segment of scaffolding. Liwen freezes, though she’s halfway inside the drone’s chassis and she doesn’t think she can be seen. Either by Vi or by—

“Pfft. Were you expecting them to be?” Geiszler, footfalls loud and shadow distorted, like he’s carrying something large and heavy.

“I mean . . . Weren’t you kinda, like. Her BFF for like a decade?”

Geiszler laughs. “While we were knowingly screwing over her company trying to destroy the planet? Uh. No. No, ‘BFF’ is not the term we’d be using for that, unf”—a heavy crash, as he dumps whatever he’d been holding onto the scaffold—“for that little relationship. Kismesissitude at best. Except, like. Minus the hatefucking. And the whole ‘mutual respect’ bit.”

“Kiswhatitude?”

“Never Google it, kid. And don’t worry about Shao. She’s our problem. Stay out of it.”

“She’s not that bad.”

“Don’t even. We already have Herms for the auspistice shit. Hand us the, ugh. The G-12 drill. Nope. Nope. Yup, that one.” They’re at the drone core, Geiszler hauling himself up the outside of it.

“Pretty sure you’re just making up words now.”

“Speaking of segues.” Shouted over the sound of the drill, unscrewing the bolts holding together the core’s access hatch. “What’s a biologist doing as a PA, anyway?”

“Nothing wrong with being a PA.”

“Never said there was. We always fired ours; they were all too good at their jobs and started getting suspicious.” Which, okay. Liwen _had_ wondered. “Other option was killing them which, y’know. Glad we decided not to, in retrospect. Also: not exactly in with the whole ‘subtle infiltration’ thing. Regardless: it’s kinda it’s own thing, right? Being a PA. Like, you wouldn’t send an engineer to the legal department. So why the career change? Coming down. It’s not heavy, just big.” As he passes the now-detached hatch to Vi, who props it up against the scaffold’s railing.

“Is that Ariel?” On her tiptoes, straining to look. At the throbbing mass of kaiju viscera inside the core, Liwen assumes.

“Yup. Napping, but she’s okay. Swapskies.” As he passes the drill down. “We’re gonna need, uh. Say four of the clampy things, plus the thing that looks like a teeny tiny chains— yup, that’s the one. Pass ‘em up, one at a time. Clamps first.”

“What are you—?”

“Testing a— ah! C’mon . . . c— hah. Gotcha. Testing a theory. Like we said, we’ve been working on increasing prosocial behaviors in the hivemind. Trying to carve out the bits the Flesh put in. Literally, in this case.”

“Brain surgery?”

“Mmhm.”

“Is that, uh. Is now really the time?”

Liwen’s fist instinctively tightens at the brusqueness, the disrespect, bracing for retaliation; Geiszler is quite notoriously a man that does not like to have his judgement questioned. Except, today, he just laughs. “Dude, why not? Not every day we get our hands on a working drone core. If we’re right, Ariel should come online less, uh. Smashy. Than before. And, like. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re kinda in close quarters here.”

“Surely they don’t want you to activate her on the ship, right?”

Geiszler makes a noncommittal sound, one all but swallowed by the sound as the saw starts up. “Better stand back,” he says. “This will get squishy.”

It does; the saw makes a sick, wet sound as it hits flesh, a shower of thick Blue splattering onto the scaffold’s grille flooring. The Blue drips, in long and viscous strings, mere feet in front of Liwen. She winces at the sight of it, at the smell; bile rising in her throat as she bites back a retch.

“Done!” Geiszler announces, from above. The whirring of the saw stops as he adds: “Biowaste bin us, dude.” Some shuffling overhead, then the unmistakable wet sound of meat hitting plastic. “Shame it’ll probably go bad before we’ve had a proper look at it.” He does sound legitimately regretful.

“What . . . is it?” Vi asks. “I mean, aside from the obvious.”

“All the cores”—Geiszler bangs on the object in question for emphasis—“are clones of Alice. She’s the secondary brain of the baby Otachi gave birth to in Hong Kong during the War. The Flesh cull natural births in the Anteverse, so she’s a real special gal. We always thought she had a lobe that seemed kinda . . . not quite right, somehow? But intact kaiju brain tissue was some of the _the_ hardest shit to get our hands on, so we never really had anything concrete to compare it with. The reason _he_ started cloning her in the first place was to try and work it out. Seemed like a great idea at the time, road to hell, et cetera et cetera.

“What we now know, partly through experimentation and partly from just frying the shit out of our own meat with the Drift, is that that lobe? It’s the bit the Flesh kinda . . . bolts on to really hammer home the destruction-instinct in the kaiju. We have fuckery in our own cerebellum that’s kinda the same. If we cut it out . . .” A pause, shadows moving in some gesture Liwen can’t see.

When Geiszler continues, his voice is almost quiet, contemplative. “The secondary brain controls base instinct and motor movements. But it’s the seat of the hivemind, too. If we carve out the bad bits . . . Ariel should wake back up into that. With Morthra and the rest of the swarm, who’ve only known humans as colony-mates. The Flesh doesn’t, like. Cuddle and care and protect its own, what with the whole aggressively anti-individualist eusociality thing, and it doesn’t do it to the kaiju, either. Hence the only way it knows how to, like, train its kaiju is basically brainwashing. But Earth-born hiveswarm act more identifiably social, and they exhibit what we’d think of as rudimentary personalities. Even if she doesn’t look it, Mothra there is genetically the same species as Ariel and Otachi and the rest. She likes human contact and she’s not aggressive. So we’re hoping we can have, y’know. More of that, and less of the ‘rawr kaiju stomp!’ stuff.”

It sounds so . . . neat. When he puts it like that. So _nice_ , so _altruistic_. But Liwen’s fallen for those pretty lies before, and swore never to again. She knows what he’s not saying; because he’s breeding his bugs to be cute and appealing . . . and loyal, too. Biddable. And he’s the only one holding the keys.

“But don’t think we don’t notice you distracting us,” Geiszler adds. “Tablet. Gotta run some diagnostics. And while we do, you can tell us your story.”

“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Curiosity is our curse. Besides, always had a problem with churn in the Australian division. Particularly women. Had some theories about it but fostering a healthy corporate culture kinda wasn’t on the priority list at the time, you know?”

“So you just wanna be proven right?”

“Uh. Duh. Obviously.” Damn him. Damn him and his ego and his cruelty.

Vi sighs, and there’s a clanging as she hauls herself up to sit on the scaffolding’s rail. “Well,” she says. “It’s pretty boring and probably exactly what you’re thinking. Not many girls in the labs here, especially not Asian girls. I was the only one, and my supervisor . . .” She trails off. Then: “It sounds kinda petty. Like, I wasn’t getting bad-touched or whatever, it was just . . . I’d always get bogged down having to do the QA on every report, but it was never, like. Peer review or whatever. Just spelling and shit. And if there was ever even one single typo or whatever left over, I’d get raked over the coals for it. It sounds so stupid to say it out loud.”

“Well, sure,” says Geiszler, far too flippantly. “Except for the fact that exact example is so literally textbook workplace bullying that they use it, specifically, in training vids. But, like. We’re sure your opinion’s cool, too.”

Vi snorts. “You sound like my dad,” she says. “He was all, ‘keep a diary’ and ‘go to HR.’ So . . . I did.”

“And discovered the hard way HR is there to keep the company out of lawsuits, not actually to, like. Help wageslaves.” So smugly cynical.

“They were nice about it,” Vi says. “Real helpful, you know? Said they’d find me a transfer.”

“Into admin,” Geiszler guesses. “Women’s work, right? Not like R&D. Where the assholes who fucked you over are still merrily lying in wait for their next victim.”

“It was only supposed to be temporary.” Vi sounds so small and so hurt, and Liwen’s heart aches for her. She shouldn’t be telling this to a creature like Geiszler; all affable facade and unrelenting, manipulative viciousness underneath. Liwen doesn’t even want to know what foul ends he’ll use the knowledge for, what game he thinks he’s playing and who he’s prepared to hurt to win it.

“How temporary was ‘temporary,’ then?”

“Eight months,” Vi confesses. “At first. I kept asking and they kept putting me off and putting me off and telling me I was doing so good where I was, why would I even want a change?”

“Because it’s not what you were hired to do,” Geiszler says. “You have a skill, and it’s not unreasonable for you to wanna use it. You’re not just a warm body to be redeployed wherever they felt like it.”

“They kept talking about, like. ‘Flexibility’ and whatever. Making it sound like I should feel honored to have _any_ sort of job at such a big, fancy foreign company.”

“Funny, how they never made us take meeting minutes or made Liwen scrub toilets, though, right?”

“I don’t . . . everyone was so nice.” Very soft and very young.

“Sure. But, like. Who gives a fuck? It’s not about that. Trust us, we are like _the_ world expert at friendly neighborhood workplace negging. You shouldn’t have to feel _grateful_ for a job you never wanted, doing something you never trained for, just because it’s convenient for someone else. That’s some hot bougie capitalist shit right there.”

Vi laughs, but it’s small and sad. “I started, you know. Looking,” she says. “But then, um. Then Tokyo, and after that . . .”

“Everyone else was trying to get out, too.”

“And they had the lab experience,” Vi says. “It’s like . . . I’ve spent over a year now booking meeting rooms and fetching coffee, and even before that it’s not like I was allowed to, like. Do much. How’m I supposed to compete?”

“Well,” says Geiszler, “first of all, you’re now one of like three people in the world who’ve ever had direct, hands-on experience with a kaiju-based Jaeger core.” He knocks on the chassis again. “So jot that down. And, when we get out of here, hit us up for a reference. We might be a crazy evil war criminal who tried to destroy the planet but we are also still the world expert in this stuff. People still listen to us. Probably more than before, really, which . . . go figure.”

And there it is, Liwen thinks; the scorpion’s sting. Still trying to destroy her—piece by piece, employee by employee—in every petty way he can think of. Vi says something else but Liwen doesn’t hear it; gut clenched in rage and head swimming from the acrid stink of kaiju viscera. She has what she came for. There’s no reason for her to stay and listen to Geiszler’s poison any longer.

* * *

It takes the better part of an hour, but Liwen gets the beacon back online. She doesn’t try and repress the little thrill she gets when the red LED blinks itself to life, flashing successfully through its startup sequence. It goes dark immediately afterwards, but it’s supposed to, and Liwen trusts that the technology is good. The JSOC will be notified, and someone will come. All she has to do is wait.

She is so busy reveling in this victory, however small it may be, that she doesn’t notice the bug until it dives down in front of her. She yelps, drawing back in instinctive revulsion from the hum of buzzing wings, and by the time she collects herself, the reactivated beacon is gone.

“ . . . no.”

“We do wonder; do you ever get sick of always being _wrong_?”

Liwen’s heart seems to contract in her chest. She looks up, almost in spite of herself, to where Geiszler looms over her. As she watches, he holds out a hand and his bug drops the tracker into it, before setting onto his shoulder.

“Give that back.” She’s proud of how calm her voice sounds. They’re both tucked away on a scaffold, behind the drone’s half-destroyed arm. They’re mostly out of sight. If Geiszler tries something . . .

Liwen’s fingers close around a wrench.

“See, Princess,” Geiszler starts, “here’s the thing. You’ve spent your entire life convinced you have to be the smartest person in the room. Always. Which, like. We get it, right? If anyone gets _that_ little peccadillo, it’s us. But your problem is you’ve never actually ever had to _be_ the smartest kid in the room because you’ve always been surrounded by people whose entire fucking job it was to pretend you were. No matter what shit-tier idea you happened to come up with on any one day which, whew. Believe us when we say you had some _doozies_.” He blows a bubble in his gum, neon blue, snapping it obnoxiously.

“This, for example.” He tosses the beacon into the air, catching it with a flourish. “Like, we gotta ask you, man; did your galaxy brain C-suite self really think they weren’t _jamming the fucking comms_?” Arms gesturing violently, voice pitched to nearly a shriek. Looking for a reaction, and Liwen will not give him one. No matter the humiliated despair she feels in her heart.

(She should’ve _known_. Stupid. Stupid little girl stupid stupid—)

Liwen stands, face blank. “You enjoy this,” she says. “Being cruel. For all you have the others fooled, playing at humanity, this is what you truly are.”

Geiszler sneers at her; a singularly unflattering expression on his otherwise boyish face. “You’re one to fucking talk. After you treated us like dirt for _ten fucking years_.” He licks the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, spitting the wad of gum between them. Then he sticks it to the side of the beacon, like some kind of teenage delinquent.

“You were trying to _destroy the planet_ ,” Liwen says. “And were trying to use my company to do it. If anything, I was too kind.”

This earns her a laugh, vicious and false and shrill. “Liwen Shao, everyone! Queen of the post hoc fucking rationalization.”

“Oh please. It was—”

“Don’t even try that shit on us. Firstly, you didn’t know. You just spent a decade being a massive bitch to us because you were Liwen fucking Shao and because you _could_. And secondly, even if you _did_ know—even if you so much as had a teeny tiny inkling of suspicion . . . like. How do you not get that’s worse, dude? Like. That’s fucking _worse_. We were cartoonishly evil; if you’d thought it was anything other than— than. Fuck. Who the fuck even knows. But if you did somehow ‘know’ and fucking ignored it . . . whoo boy.” He paces as he rants, gesticulating wildly. But not randomly; the bug on his shoulder hops onto the back of his hand when he beckons it. Then he glues the beacon to its carapace with the gum, pressing it to make sure it sticks, hard enough for the creature to give a little squeak of protest.

“You do not get to blame me for your mistakes.” Liwen has made plenty of her own, the man in front of her being chief among them. She will not take responsibility for someone else’s.

“ _Our_ mistakes?” Geiszler throws up both hands, gesture enough to dislodge his bug, which opens its wings and darts off. Like even his monsters cannot stand him. “Right now we’d be happy if you’d so much as gotten a slap on the fucking wrist for _yours_. Don’t forget, Princess; the drone program was your idea. We made it work but you were the one who thought commodifying Jaeger and selling them off like fucking iPhones was just fucking peachy.”

“That is _not_ —” Liwen cuts herself off. She’s furious, but Geiszler is baiting her. He _knows_ that’s not how things were. “Shao Industries’ drone program was only ever intended for use by the PPDC,” she says, because it is true.

Geiszler is not pacified. “That is such _bullshit_ ,” he spits. “God, you’re so full of fucking shit it drives me fucking _insane_! You tell yourself lie after fucking lie. In what magical fucking universe did you think that was ever going to be the case? It wasn’t the case for the old tech and it’s not even the case _now_. Literally right now. Here. Where we are standing right here in this exact moment. They call me a fucking war criminal? Then what the fuck does that make _you_ , you hypocritical, profiteering piece of _shit_!”

“Enough.” Liwen doesn’t yell. She doesn’t have to. Her mind feel like a frozen lake, calm and cold and deadly. It’s enough. She’s had enough. “What is this, Newt? Hm? What do you think you’re doing here, exactly? Shrieking histrionics, trying to humiliate me, to drag me down into your filth. Is that why you didn’t let them shoot me? You need a scapegoat, a punching bag. Does this make you feel _powerful_? Is this what you think power is?” She opens her arms, palms outwards. For one moment, barely a heartbeat, she thinks she sees . . . something. On Geiszler’s face. Some expression she’s never seen before, at least not directed at her.

It’s gone so fast Liwen thinks she must’ve imagined it, shuttered behind the dead-eyed alien facade she hasn’t seen so much of since before Hermann’s desperate flight to Europe, all those months ago.

“I thought so,” Liwen says, when Geiszler says nothing in response to her questions. She drops her arms. “You are pathetic,” she says. “You always were. And you’re right; pity made me indulge you far too long. No more. Shoot me if you must but I will listen to no more of your garbage.”

Then Liwen turns around, and walks away.

Geiszler says nothing and he does not try and stop her. Liwen will admit she expects a bullet in the back at every step, and isn’t certain if what she feels when one does not materialize is disappointment or relief. They’ve certainly made enough noise to have attracted attention, both from the other captives and from their ever-watchful guards. Many of the latter smirk as Liwen passes, calling out leering jibes. She does not falter under their scorn. She has endured worse, and she will not give them the satisfaction to see her crumble.

* * *

Liwen doesn’t really know what to do with herself, after that. The drone is close to being functional enough to reactivate, but it feels somehow disingenuous to keep working on it, and none of the other people trust her, besides.

She sits with Andy, for a while. He’s conscious and in obvious pain, but at least tries to make small-talk while Liwen helps with the compresses on his hand. She also learns quite a great deal from him about the operations in their Australian offices; between his stories and Vi’s, Liwen’s already started to draft the email she will be sending to the current board the second they get out of here. She may no longer be CEO but she is still a majority shareholder and it is still her name on the company logo, and that has to mean something.

(She doesn’t allow herself to think of a scenario where they are not rescued. The stakes are too high, and it’s been too long. _Someone_ must be looking for them, and the vessel they are in is enormous. They cannot be too hard to find, even in the middle of the Pacific.)

She’s washing Andy’s bandages in the little bathroom they’ve been allocated—thankfully, their captors have not been punitive in that regard—when the door opens.

“It’s okay sweetie it’s okay, we’ll just get you some nice— Oh!”

It’s Vi. She freezes when she sees Liwen, eyes wide, clutching something protectively against her chest.

They stare at each other for one awkward heartbeat, then two. Then Liwen shuts off the tap and collects her bandages and her bucket and says, “It’s okay. I was just—”

“No!” Vi blurts. “No, sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean— I just. Um.” Then, all in one sudden rush: “Areyouokay?”

Liwen blinks, suddenly as unsure as Vi looks. “I . . .” she says. “Uh . . .”

“Right. Right, sorry. Of _course_ you’re not okay. I don’t think any of us are okay, right?” She gives a nervous laugh and takes a step further into the room. Her arms relax a little and Liwen can see she’s clutching the huddled form of the bug Geiszler gave her. It’s curled tightly around itself, shivering and whimpering. When Vi notices Liwen looking at it, she holds it out with a: “See? Even Mothra’s freaking out. I’m not really sure how to help her? I was gonna try and make, like. A nest or something? Out of toilet paper or whatever and wow. It sounds kind of dumb, when I say it out loud.”

Liwen takes a step closer. Huge, luminescent blue eyes glance her way, just for a moment. Then the bug shrieks, flinching away, trying to scurry inside Vi’s Blue-stained coveralls.

“Woah! Woah woah, it’s okay. It’s okay sweetie it’s just Ms. Shao. She won’t hurt you!”

Liwen thinks of every uncharitable thought she’s ever had about Geiszler’s bugs and thinks perhaps Vi’s words are less true than she thinks. “It’s afraid of me,” she says.

“Aah,” says Vi, obviously struggling to be tactful. “Well, um. I think . . . Doctor Geiszler said they’re kind of, um. Bonded to him? Somehow? I don’t really know how it works, exactly, but I think they’re kind of . . . sensitive? To his. Um. To his emotions . . .” She trails off, wincing, as she realizes what she’s just admitted.

“Ah.” Liwen takes a step back, suddenly unsure. Vi is mistaken. She must be. There’s no way . . .

“Look,” Vi says. She’s managed to calm the bug down, mostly by holding it pressed tightly against her chest. “I know this totally isn’t my place and you have, like. _Totally_ a right to your beef or whatever with Doctor G, and he is a total arsehole to you, like wow.” She takes a deep breath. “But . . . but he’s not, like. Working for them. If that’s what you think.”

Liwen feels her face fall into hard, disbelieving lines. “You cannot know that.”

“Um. Maybe?” Vi admits. “But . . . but I don’t think Mothra would be freaking out so much, if that were true? Like . . . I dunno. I guess you know him better than me or whatever but, like. I think Doc is . . . scared? Like. Really, really scared.”

“He is reactivating his awful creature,” Liwen says. “Afraid or not, he is helping our captors.”

“Um. Yeah? ‘Cause, like. They were gonna shoot us all, otherwise. They keep threatening to anyway! Like, if you have a better plan that’s amazing, super on board with it, but, like. Until then . . .”

Liwen opens her mouth, then closes it. _We told you we need them all,_ Geiszler had said. _Alive._ He’d stopped their captors from beating Liwen and from shooting Andy. Insisted the other hostages be treated well, or at least left alone. Tried to reassure them all one-by-one it would be so.

He’d warned Liwen about the coms, in his own way. And, maybe more importantly, he’d taken her reassembled beacon and affixed it to one of his bugs. Why? Liwen hadn’t thought much of it at the time but she thinks perhaps she should have. Geiszler is manipulative and duplicitous and used to working secretively and alone. And he does truly loathe her. But he is extremely good at getting what he wants, and Liwen does not have a robust track record of knowing what that is. Freedom, she’d assumed. He’s technically still a prisoner, currently in the custody of the PPDC and with the threat of a war crimes trial hanging over his head should he misbehave. Liwen had thought he’d want to escape that; Liwen certainly would. Except . . .

Except.

What if she’s wrong? Again. She never did understand Geiszler’s motivations; what makes her think she can start now? The PPDC allows him his godawful pets and horrific experiments. He is feared and he is respected. People listen to him when he speaks, even when what he’s saying is rambling nonsense. Even at Shao, what more had he ever wanted?

His work is around controlling the kaiju; he’s _said_ as much, repeatedly. If he can activate the drone . . .

“All right,” Liwen finally says. They’ll be time enough for pride and rage and recriminations. Later. When this is all over. “I . . . Thank you. I will . . . consider what you’ve said.”

* * *

She does. For a little while. Observes the way Geiszler moves among the others, the work he does when he thinks no one’s watching. Forces herself to see the things she may have . . . missed. Before. Assumptions she may have made, may have taken for granted.

Geiszler does not look well. Liwen has not noticed it because, she realizes, it is how she’s _used_ to seeing him; pale skinned, reddened eyes ringed in flecks of blood-crust. Shaking hands constantly reaching up to press against his brow. It’s how he was a Shao, particularly near the end; Liwen had assumed it stress, or alcoholism, or both. But it’s not how he’s been at the ‘Dome, particularly since his return. Liwen does not pretend to understand how Geiszler’s shattered mind works but she knows what it looks like when the uneasy equilibrium he keeps within himself starts to fail.

He’s still wearing his wedding ring.

The others are gone—the ostentatious American class rings, the kaiju-skull replicas—but the plain silver band on his left hand remains. He fidgets with it almost constantly, when his hands aren’t busy with other work. Spinning it around and around on his finger. A nervous tick, certainly, but . . .

Where _is_ Hermann? Liwen had been assuming malice in his absence, but there are a thousand reasons why he may have missed their flight—why Geiszler may have been late for it—and the vast majority are mundane, particularly if they had no reason to suspect this trip to have been anything other than a routine clean-up. Geiszler may simply have withheld the information because Liwen is no longer his boss and because he takes petty delight in reminding her of the fact she has no power to command his compliance and no goodwill to obtain it otherwise. But he’d told Hansen, hadn’t he? Liwen hadn’t heard his response, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t had one.

And Geiszler is still a monster and Liwen still loathes him and the feeling is still definitely mutual, but . . .

But. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not on the same side.

Liwen makes a choice.

* * *

She approaches Geiszler while he’s working, mostly alone, up on a scaffold near the drone’s spine. He has the access hatches open, revealing a suppurating mass of wires and rotting kaiju tissue, and is directing his bugs to repairing it via his tablet. He doesn’t look up when Liwen approaches, but does spit: “Whatever it is, fuck off. We’re busy and don’t have the fucking brain space to deal with you right now.”

Liwen ignores the vitriol, as she’s very used to doing. “I spoke with Vi,” she says instead, in Mandarin. Geiszler had used it before, about Hansen. Liwen had thought it a threat at the time but . . . but perhaps it had been a warning. If Geiszler does not think their captors understand the language . . .

Geiszler makes a frustrated huff in the back of his throat. “We told her to stay out of it,” he says, in English, though his voice has lost some of its edge.

“My mother,” Liwen says, “she always used to tell me the greatest weapon was knowing people generally do not look very hard, when you show them what they think they want to see. Talking to Vi . . . reminded me. That perhaps I had not been very good at looking.”

When Geiszler’s eyes flick up to Liwen, they are iridescently blue. Fathomless and alien and mad. But he’s listening, at least.

Liwen nods to the drone, just slightly. “You think you can control it.”

A pause, then two. For a moment, Liwen thinks she’s miscalculated, thinks Geiszler will not answer her or, worse, will laugh his unhinged laugh. But when he opens his mouth what comes out is: “We know they definitely can’t.” In Mandarin, not English, and Liwen knows that finally, _finally_ she guessed right.

“They have the Jaeger,” she points out. She uses _lièrén_ , rather than the German term, just in case they are being listened to. Assuming anyone can, over the awful, pouring music, which . . . okay, perhaps also should’ve been another clue. “But if I can get to it . . .”

Geiszler stares at her, unblinking. Calculating. It’s uncomfortable, that stare, but Liwen subjects herself to it. Allows it to see through her and find nothing but her sincerity beneath.

Finally, Geiszler gestures to something behind Liwen. Almost before she’s had time to react she feels the pinprick weight of a dozen tiny feet against her neck. One of Geiszler’s bugs, burrowing into her blouse and settling itself in the hollow of her clavicle, tails wrapped around her neck. Like some kind of awful amulet.

Liwen gasps and stumbles backwards from the feel of it, hands instinctively rising to try and pull the creature free. “Don’t,” Geiszler snaps at her. Then, more measured: “Her venom is enough to knock an adult human out cold. But she only gets one. Understood?” Because the Jaeger is always manned, but there is only one person inside.

Liwen nods, tries to still her hands and stop her skin from crawling. “When—?”

“You’ll know when,” Geiszler says. He gives a dismissive flick of his fingers, and goes back to his work, apparently done with the conversation. Liwen allows him his petty victory, says nothing more, and walks away.

* * *

She stays as close to the Jaeger as she dares, doing petty busywork the others bring her; stripping wires and pulling apart circuit boards. She has no idea what, if anything, it’s achieving and no one tells her and she doesn’t ask. It is what it is. All the while, the prickling, alien weight of Geiszler’s bug hangs heavy around her neck.

At some point, another bug flies in and begins to circle Geiszler’s head, landing on the back of his hand when he reaches up to it. He seems to study it for an unusually long time, turning it over in his hands, lifting up segments of its carapace, while it squeaks and wriggles its legs and thrashes its tails. Eventually, seemingly satisfied, he settles it onto his shoulder where it promptly puffs itself out like an aggrieved songbird, and begins to clean itself with its various limbs.

Not long after that, the music stops.

“Yo, meatbags,” Geiszler yells, up at the men who still watch them from the gangplanks. “We’re done here. Go tell your boss his girl is ready for him.”

_You’ll know when,_ Geiszler had said, and Liwen does. She slips away, behind a scaffold, as the rest of their group clusters up near the drone. Geiszler is very particular about where they stand, snappish and aggressive as he seems to box the group of exhausted techs into a taped-off space, his bugs buzzing around the perimeter.

By the time the leader of their captors emerges, Geiszler is standing on the mezzanine Liwen had first awoken on, still tapping away on his tablet.

Liwen is some distance away but sound echoes in the enormous hold, and she hears their captor announce: “I was told the drone is functional.” He gestures to the object in question. “What is this?”

“She’s sleeping,” Geiszler answers. “But she’s hooked up and ready to go. Just gotta hit the big red go button.”

“Then do it.”

“Yeah, look, dude. Dunno if you’ve noticed but it’s kinda cramped quarters in here. And the last time we activated—”

Their captor steps forward, grabbing Geiszler by the collar and hauling him to his tip-toes. “We are not here for your games. I want the Jaeger functional. That was the deal. If you need a reminder—”

“No! No no no, it’s fine. We’re fine. We get it. Nyet problemski, keep your knickers on, all of the above.” He’s pushed backwards with one last shake, stumbling and nearly tripping over his own feet. Liwen can’t see his face from where she is but she knows the expression; she spent ten years with it directed at her. That facade of spineless obeisance, the one that barely papers over the endless alien malice beneath.

“Do it,” comes the order.

“All right,” says Geiszler in return, and taps at his tablet.

The change in the air is immediate, electrifying. All Jaeger are terrifying in their own way—too large and too strange and too powerful—and the corrupted drones are something else again. Liwen can’t help the shiver that runs up her spine when lights flicker along the drone’s chassis, when the hold reverberates with something that sounds like a motor but is, Liwen soon realizes, a _growl_.

The drone is awake.

Awake and moving, jaws shifting and head turning, focusing on where its master stands before it. The sound it makes intensifies, metal retraining bolts screaming as it tries to free its dismembered torso.

“What is it—?”

The drone’s free hand rises, and rises. Until corrupted claws arch above where Geiszler leans, utterly nonchalant, against the mezzanine’s rail.

“It’s cute,” he says, “how people like you always assume _you’ll_ be the ones holding the monster’s leash.”

And then the claw comes down, and chaos erupts.

Liwen does not hesitate, does not turn back at the screams, the gunfire, the ear-bleeding roaring of the activated drone. She just runs. Along a scaffold, up a rickety flight of ad hoc stairs. Single-mindedly focused on her goal, on getting to the solo Jaeger.

The pilot is still struggling with the console when Liwen vaults into the Conn-Pod. He barks a curse in surprise when he sees her, hesitates for half a second looking for a weapon. It’s enough for Liwen to lunge, to throw herself bodily at him and begin to claw inexpertly at his face. He pushes her off almost immediately, backhanding her for good measure. She goes down with a yelp but, as she does, she feels a pressure on her neck, hears a a tiny, high-pitched roar very close to her ears.

“The fu—” is as far as the pilot gets, before Liwen’s bug fastens itself onto his face. Its tails comes up and jab him in the neck. Once, twice. Then he’s managed to pull it free, throwing it violently at the wall. It hits with a scream and a sickening crunch, leaving a smear of Blue in its wake and, for the first time, Liwen feels something other than disgust for the horrible little creatures.

“You fucking _bitch_!” the pilot roars. “I’m gonna k— I’m gonna—” He takes a step forward, wobbling. On the second, his legs buckle beneath him. “The fuck,” he gasps. “The fuck did you do . . .?”

Liwen stands, as elegantly as she’s able. She feels no need to answer and so doesn’t, simply rolls the former pilot away from the Jaeger’s controls. He’s heavy and deadweight and flails at her legs, but his movements are weak and he’s unconscious by the second flip. Liwen wastes no more time on him; there’s enough scavenged Shao technology in the Jaeger that Liwen is able to strap in and complete the start-up and instigate the bridge. She sighs as her mind flows into the technology around her, cool and calm and comfortingly clear. Like coming home; all the day’s rage and fear and loathing melting from her like snow beneath the rays of the springtime sun.

By the time Liwen opens her eyes—opens the Jaeger’s eyes—the hold is in chaos. Men with guns are shooting wildly at the corrupted drone, which roars and snaps at them as best it can from its restraints. Its weapons systems have been disabled and its one hand is busy, curled protectively around the huddled group of hostages, meaning it can’t fight back. But it is not going to be dissuaded by rifles, either, no matter the number of bullets that bounce off its chassis or embed into its hide.

Liwen steps forward. The men notice her movement, gesturing to her eagerly as they call her over the comms. They don’t know it’s her, she realizes; they think she’s their pilot, come to subdue the roaring drone. She won’t say it isn’t a tempting thought—to put a fist straight through that awful, pulsing core—but Liwen resists. Instead, she uses the Jaeger’s external speakers to bark:

“Throw down your weapons and surrender! Hands up, against the wall, or I— I will squash you!” The Jaeger is designed for industry, not combat; its weapons are a rivet gun and a cutting blade. Liwen does not know if she could actually bring herself to use them on another human and is hoping she will not have to find out.

“Fuck!” comes the reply. “It’s Shao! Shao’s in the Jaeger. Abort, abort mission do you copy? Jacobs, do you read me? Do you—?”

The men flee, or try to; Liwen sees at lest three go down as they dart for the doors, for no reason she can immediately determine. The comms are pure panic; incoherent curses and cut off cries of “oh shit they’re on the ship!” and then, cutting through it all:

“So, like. Funny story, but here’s the thing.” Geiszler, voice coming in over the comms, calm and light. “Once you’ve leveled a few cities, destroyed a few Shatterdomes, summoned a few kaiju . . . your can never really go back to being a nobody, right? Like, every room you’re in you’re always the thing everyone is looking at. Like a bear in a fucking tutu, everyone’s just fucking waiting for you to get up and dance. Or, like. Destroy things, in this case. Do the ol’ double-cross, make the big villain speech, explain how you fucked everyone over. Again.”

“What did you do? Goddamn you, what did you—?”

Around the hold, more and more of their captors are dropping; either by choice, hands folded onto their heads, or from whatever invisible assailants are targeting them.

“We go back and forth on it, y’know?” Geiszler continues, ignoring the interruption. “Most of the time, it’s pretty fucking tiresome. Like, we _get_ it, but . . . man, it sucks. Which, kinda ironic, but we guess that’s the curse of fame, right? Everyone always wants it ’til they have it, and realize they suddenly can’t even take a dump without people making up paranoid fucking fantasies about how it’s all part of some secret, evil plot. So. Most of the time? Kinda shitty.”

And . . . now. Now Liwen can see them; moving into the hold. More men with rifles, these ones in combat fatigues.

“But . . . sometimes? Sometimes it’s _real_ fucking helpful, y’know. Like, when you need a distraction, for example. A big fucking distraction and, man. Not much bigger a distraction out there than a kaiju and a freakin’ Jaeger, right? Or . . . two Jaeger? One and a half?”

“Goddamn you! Goddamn you, I’ll—”

“Blah blah blah revenge blah blah join the club, pal.” It’s barely audible over the noise on the comms, men yelling in thick accents. Demanding surrender. “You think you’re the first in line with a grudge?” Geiszler says. “Dude, you aren’t even the thousandth.”

And the Australian SAS flood into the ship, and everything is over.

* * *

Or, not quite.

By the time Liwen has exited the Jaeger, their captors are in custody, the Australians are in control of the ship, and the PPDC is on its way.

She’s greeted on the mezzanine by a man who introduces himself as Captain Andrews. “Good work back there, Ranger Shao,” he says, completely earnestly, as he shakes her hand.

“I’m not sure I did much,” Liwen admits, because it’s been a very long day.

“I’d say keeping a Jaeger out of enemy hands counts as plenty,” says Andrews. “Especially with that . . . thing in the mix.” He gestures to the drone, still active and currently being distracted by Geiszler as the soldiers evacuate the rest of their little hostage group. “Still not convinced we won’t need you to finish up, so maybe don’t go too far just yet.”

Geiszler looks over his shoulder as they approach, hands still raised in a placating gesture to the drone. It watches them, malevolent and huge, and when Andrews doesn’t get too close, Liwen does not blame him.

“Oh. Yeah hey. You the, like— S’okay baby, it’s okay. Good girl, you’re such a—”

“Doctor Geiszler?”

“Right. Right, yeah. You got the— you got the, uh. Got the decks cleared, got everyone out okay?”

“Doctor Geiszler, I’m going to need you to, uh. To deactivate the, um. The . . . creature. Sir.”

“Yeah, yeah sure no problem just gotta run some stuff— Is everyone okay, though? Like. The, uh. The asshole dudes all out?”

“Sir.” Andrews is more insistent, spine stiffening as his gaze flicks between Geiszler and the drone. It’s definitely watching them, watching _Liwen_ , growling low enough to vibrate the metal beneath their feet.

“You gotta get the— Anyone who shot at us, you gotta get them out.” Now Geiszler’s voice is rising, getting higher pitched and more urgent. “And don’t . . . don’t act weird, man. Don’t act weird to us, don’t act weird to—”

“Doctor Geiszler! I need you to—”

“Don’t!” Geiszler flinches at the sound of his own voice, even as the drone snaps its horrible jaws above his head. The displaced air, its not quite breath, nearly knocks them all down. “Sssh,” Geiszler says. “Sssh, ssh baby it’s okay. Everything’s fine we just—” Then, back to Andrews: “Dude you gotta— Are they gone? Are they all out of the hold? We can’t— we don’t know what she’ll do if—”

“They’re gone.” Something about the urgency, the proximity to such a restless monster, gets through to Andrews. “But, sir. I need you to—”

“Yeah,” says Geiszler. His eye is bleeding, Liwen notices. When he blinks, the other starts up as well. “Cool, sure. Just— First we just gotta— oh fuck.” And then his eyes roll back, and he collapses onto the mezzanine.

“Fuck,” says Andrews. He gets half a step forward before the entire world seems to shift around them. The drone is moving, growling low enough Liwen can feel it; in her ribs, in her heart. Andrews swears again, and they both stumble backwards as an enormous hand (they are _so big_ , how had Liwen never really noticed how _big_ they are?) looms above them.

There’s no way they can truly get out of the drone’s reach, not in time. But . . . but it’s not reaching for them. When its hand lowers, it’s to come to rest over Geiszler’s prone form.

“Oh, fuck,” says Andrews, again, and Liwen does not disagree.

* * *

Hermann arrives while they’re still trying to work out what to do about the drone.

He looks awful, rumpled and stiff, limping far more than usual. But, more than that, his nose is red and his skin is clammy and he coughs and sniffs his way across the hold. He has the flu. That’s why he didn’t come with them, what feels like years ago and hasn’t even yet been a day. And, suddenly, Liwen can see it; can see Geiszler, pushing him back into bed, arguing that he’s too sick, he needs rest, he’d just infect them, too, if he came. That’s why Geiszler had been late. Liwen think she’ll be mad about it. Later, when she’s not so exhausted. Such a mundane thing, and no reason for Geiszler not to simply _tell_ her it had happened. But, no. Because he has to play his little games, has to—

“Ranger Shao! Please, Newton. Where is—?”

Liwen sighs. She’s seated on the foot of the Jaeger, at the far side of the cargo hold. She’s been given an emergency blanket and an MRE to eat, and the Australians have been both very polite and also very insistent that she remain on call, lest the drone try . . . something.

It’s been a tremendously boring vigil; the drone has spent the entire duration of it growling lowly and staring at her in abject malice, but has made no other moves. No one has been brave enough to get close to it and, quite frankly, they don’t even know if Geiszler is still alive, or if he’s nothing but a thin, red (blue?) smear beneath his creation’s claw.

(Privately, Liwen thinks this would be far to much to hope for. She does not express the sentiment to Hermann when he asks.)

When Liwen is done with explanation, Hermann turns to the drone with a: “I suppose no-one has tried to . . . talk to her?”

He has one of Geiszler’s bugs perched on his shoulder, and Liwen is almost certain there are more curled up in the pockets of his coat. He is not nearly as enamored by the creatures as Geiszler is, but he is obviously used to their presence, and they flock to him in lieu of their master.

“Ah, it was a suggestion,” Liwen admits, because it was; from Vi, because of course. “But we felt it would be . . . dangerous.”

Hermann sighs, rolls his spine and juts his jaw and says: “Well. I suppose there’s only one way to find out.” Then he begins striding forward.

“Hermann!” Liwen is not far behind. She isn’t even sure why, exactly—the drone certainly has no love for her and there’s nothing she can do against it alone—but . . .

“Does she have a name?”

“Er. Ariel, I think?”

“Ari—” Hermann stops so suddenly Liwen nearly trips over him. When he turns to her, his expression is absolutely incredulous. “He called her— Because she’s got no—” He throws up his free hand. “Of course. Of course he did.” Then he’s off again, as Liwen thinks:

_Oh._

Ariel, as in the character from _The Little Mermaid_. The girls who longs to walk.

The drone, Ariel, watches them as they approach, but does not growl, and Liwen supposes that’s an improvement. Though her heart nearly seizes when Hermann uses the end of his cane to rap twice against the thing’s enormous hand.

“Ah, Ariel?” Hermann calls. “If you’d be a dear, we need to check on Newton now.” He makes a lifting gesture with his hand. “Up. Up, please.”

The drone makes a sound Liwen can only think of as “inquisitive” but, with a tilt of its massive head, it does begin to lift its hand. Slowly, at first, then with more enthusiasm at Hermann’s urging.

Geiszler is where they left him, and bolts upright the second Hermann calls his name. “Wazzawake! We’re awake! What’d we miooh hi Herms!” His expression breaks into a brilliant smile at the sight of his husband; one that falls into a pout a heartbeat later with a: “You’re supposed to be in bed!”

“Y— You got _kidnapped_!” Hermann splutters, outraged, before devolving into another coughing fit.

“We were fine! We were— woah.” Geiszler staggers at he tries to get to his feet too quickly, absent-mindedly scrubbing the blood from his cheeks. “We had it totally under control!” Then, while Hermann is still spluttering in outrage: “Oh, fuck. Herc. Is Herc—?“

“Fine,” Hermann says. “He’s fine. Recovering. He sends his gratitude, though it was caveated that if he ever had to watch, quote, ‘one of your horrible little bugs’ chew a bullet out of his stomach and vomit superglue into the wound again he would, and again I quote, ‘rip your body arms off.’”

Geiszler huffs laughter, hands running through his hair, sending it into even greater disarray than usual. “They’ve been jamming radio signals,” he says. “They can’t jam the hive mind. But it’s, uh. Kind of a blunt instrument. At the moment.”

“As Master Khuran discovered. His little fellow has been quite inconsolable, as have the rest of the swarm. We surmised something must have happened with the recovery team.” A pause. “It was either that, or another kaiju attack.” With this being the more preferable of the two outcomes, not quite said aloud. “Finding your precise location was more difficult,” Hermann adds. “Until we got a call from our good friends at Shao.” He regards Liwen with a raised brow.

“I . . . Uh . . . I didn’t . . .”

“Dude,” says Geiszler, at Liwen’s confusion. “We stuck your beacon to Khepri, remember? And sent him out of the ship? To, like. Follow us from the air?”

“ . . . Oh,” says Liwen.

“What did you _think_ we were doing?”

“Well— I—” No. No, Liwen will not play this game. She pulls herself up straight and says: “You make it very difficult to know _what_ you are doing, from any one moment to another. Intentionally.”

Hermann sighs at the both of them. “Regardless,” he says, or tries to, but Geiszler is too busy with: “And where’s Aradia?”

“Who?”

“The—” Geiszler makes a gesture around his neck. “Aradia!”

The bug he’d given Liwen, in other words, and she feels herself bristling in preemptive defensiveness. “It performed admirably, yes. Exactly as you—”

“Where _is_ she? Did you . . . did you _kill our baby_?”

“In the Jaeger!” Liwen blurts. “I didn’t— The pilot, he—”

Geiszler makes a sound halfway between an outraged shriek and frustrated groan, and immediately scrambles off, with far more animation that the movement requires.

“Newto— and he’s gone.” Hermann sighs, then looks up at the drone, still placidly watching them from above. “Well,” he says. “I suppose you’ll just have to wait a little longer.”

* * *

Their captors are in custody. Air Vice-Marshal Hansen and Andy were the only serious injuries; the former is doing well recovering at Royal Brisbane hospital, and Liwen has personally committee to covering all medical and recovery costs for the latter. Everyone else is on their way home. The corrupted core is deactivated and in the custody of the PPDC, as are the remains of the Jaeger drone; Liwen would prefer to see them both destroyed, but those negotiations are no longer hers to make, and Hermann is so fascinated by the technology she had given up on the idea of petitioning the PPDC as a non-starter.

(The drone had been quite attentive to him, once he’d appeared before it. And obedient. Liwen supposes it’s something to do with the hive mind; the bugs recognize Geiszler as their master and must know Hermann, too, in the same way dogs can discern the relationships of their human owners. Liwen wouldn’t necessarily say she finds the thought comforting—nothing about the kaiju is ever comforting—but it’s not nothing, either. To know there’s someone else, with a hand on the leash.)

The bug, Aradia, is fine. Maybe a little hurt, but Geiszler finds it, still in the Jaeger’s Conn-Pod, and spends the entire trip home in the Jumphawk fussing and cooing over it like a newborn. Hermann snores terribly, stretched out fast asleep with his head in his husband’s lap. And Liwen? Liwen spends several hours sending a long string of sternly worded emails to the Shao Industries board, demanding immediate action on the situation in the Australian division in general, and on behalf of Vi personally.

Then she, too, sleeps.

When they land at the Shatterdome Liwen is first off the ‘Hawk. Jules is there to greet her with a hug and a, “You got _kidnapped_? Tell me all about it. Right now.” And it makes Liwen feel better, at least a little bit. She nods to Hermann as he and Geiszler jump down from the vehicle; he returns the gesture, red nosed and sniffing. Geiszler doesn’t even make eye contact, as if Liwen does not even register on his plane of existence. She supposes that’s for the best.

* * *

Six weeks later, Liwen runs into Vi on the way to the cafeteria.

“Oh!” says Vi, eyes going very wide. “Ms— I mean. Ranger Shao. Hey.”

Liwen dips her head. “Vi,” she says. “How have you been?”

Vi breaks into a blinding grin. “Great!” she says, gesturing eagerly to the ID badge hanging from her neck. “Check it! I’m PPDC now!”

Liwen does not allow the clench of disappointment she feels to show on her face. She is far, far too good for that. “Oh?” she says. “What prompted the change?” Nice, neat, neutral. No accusations, just a simple question.

“Um,” says Vi. “Well . . . things kind of got crazy? At Shao. After . . . y’know. I got, like, hauled into the APac VP’s office. He was, like. _Super_ interested in me for some reason? I couldn’t figure it out for, like. Ages. Until he offered to promote me. To senior research engineer.”

Liwen blinks, just once. Thinks of a series of emails, sent weeks ago from a Jumphawk. “Was that . . . bad?”

Vi shrugs, suddenly awkward. “I was so stoked. Like, at first? But it felt kinda weird, y’know? And Dad always said to trust your gut so, like. I sat on it overnight and it kinda occurred to me . . . I hadn’t been in a lab for, like. Ages. So why the sudden promotion into a technical role? And then it was, like. Oh. ‘Cause I’d done work with Doctor G, and with the k-core.”

The corrupted drone core. It’s Geiszler’s name for them, and Liwen starts to get a sinking feeling.

“I guess . . . not many people have that?” Vi is saying. “And even though it’s not like I really _did_ anything . . . I guess it makes sense, that Shao would kinda want anything I did have? And it just felt, y’know. Kinda shitty? That they weren’t really trying to give _me_ a job . . . they were kinda trying to re-hire Doctor G. Or at least, like. Pick his brain by proxy?” She sighs, makes an open-palmed shrugging gesture. “The money was good, though. _Really_ good. So it was, like. Super tempting. And to get back into proper lab work, y’know? Not just admin. Aa-aa-aa-and then Doctor Gottlieb called me, and asked if I wanted a job in k-tech.”

Liwen does not react. Liwen is very, _very_ good at not reacting. “Oh,” she says. “That was . . . more appealing?”

Vi gives a self-deprecating laugh. “Well,” she says. “It was kinda like . . . Okay. Here’s this big bag of money to go hang out in this kinda cushy fake job where I was kinda miserable but at least it was the devil I knew right? Oo-oo-or I could take a way smaller bag of money and move to a totally foreign country where I knew, like. No one. But at least it would be because, like. Someone wanted to hire _me_. Doctor G, like. Asked for me. Specifically. He said it’s hard to fill k-tech roles because they need people that, y’know. Kinda don’t wanna just murder the kaiju on sight? Or, like. Him. And the biology degree was totally a bonus. Plus then when I was like, ‘oo-oo-oh I dunno’ he was like, ‘also you get to make your own personal Mothra’ and I was like, ‘whoa damn son sold I’m there.’” Another laugh, as she throws out her arms. “So. Here I am. Ready and willing to start, like. Making awesome monsters for Earth.”

“Oh,” Liwen says again, voice smooth and neutral and even. “I’m so pleased you managed to find something that makes you happy.” This is not even a lie. Vi is a lovely girl. Liwen wishes her only the best.

“Thanks!” Vi says, because case-in-point. “And, hey. I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other around? I’m gonna get like totally lost in this place for months, I can just feel it.”

“You’ll learn it in no time,” Liwen says, her body reflexively filling in the words. Because Vi is a lovely girl, and they make more small-talk, standing there in the hallway. Liwen tells herself she is happy for Vi, that everyone makes their own decisions, and there is absolutely no reason at all for her to feel the specter of Newton Geiszler lurking behind her back, mad-eyed and grinning and victorious.

Again.

**Author's Note:**

> _We the great and small, stand on a star and[blaze a trail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv-0mmVnxPA)._


End file.
